The Electoral College

Jonah Goldberg defends the electoral college in his latest article. A lot of people have suggested that the Electoral College may not be the most fair or democratic way of determining who is to be the President. To this Mr. Goldberg says Phooey (not literally).

His first argument in its defense? It's been around a long time. Hmmmmmm. The old stood the test of time argument. Yes but does it perform like it used to? I mean I'm sure you can find old Model Ts still around (if not on most roads) but the reason they are still around is that clever and hard working and wealthy gents and ladies have spent a lot of time and wealthy refurbishing and keeping them on the road. Has anybody spent the same kind of energy keeping the Electoral college running smoothly?

Secondly there is the states rights argument. I can buy that in regards to the Senate I can understand and buy that argument, but I don't see it's application here. Everybody in America gets the same vote for President; the President is the President of everybody.

The real switch would be in campaigning. Urban areas would automatically take a greater importance, and rural areas less importance. That's not to say farmers are any less represented, they still get their one vote each. But Presidential politics will naturally gravitate to those areas where a lot of people live. To my mind this might be a positive development; country folk don't give a crap what happens to people in cities. In many cases they actively despise those fools who choose to live in cities. So the problems of cities are often ignored. I'm not sure this would fix that problem; but it might have positive benefits.

The other question is how much does personal political advantage play into this argument? An increase in people voting usually helps Democrats. An increase in Direct Democracy might very well help Democrats as well. There's nothing unfair about it; but Republicans would have to evolve to the new situation. Which they would not like to do.

Personally I like the idea of Instant Runoff balloting--but we certainly need to do something. But we certainly need to do something. A Model T doesn't fall apart if you don't believe in it; an Electoral system just might. After all it is a social system; those only work if people believe that they work. See, for example, the trip without a ticket. Anyway something to think about.